Renowned for its legendary panache, Aston Martin marks its 100th anniversary with its most advanced car yet

The Aston Martin Rapide, the concept for which debuted in 2006, was something of a first. An incredible sports car with four doors and four full-size seats, it created a whole new breed of automobile. It set automotive designers scratching their heads—and rivals racing to match it. Ferrari offered the FF, Porsche the Panamera. Now, as Aston Martin celebrates its 100th anniversary, the company is trying to perfect that vision with the 2014 Rapide S—a vehicle that is more graceful, more powerful, and even more dashing than its predecessor.

To start, the updates: The Rapide S appears longer and lower than the original Rapide. It is definitely faster. The V-12 engine produces 550 horsepower (an increase of nearly 20 percent), a top speed of 190 m.p.h., and a zero to 60 time of 4.7 seconds. It’s a torpedo in a tux, driven by one but meant to thrill four. Well-tempered brakes, along with improved weight distribution, ensure all that muscle is delivered with impeccable English manners.

The interior is lavishly appointed with a rich grade of Bridge of Weir leather, mingled with wood and carbon-fiber detailing. Ride quality can be altered through the adaptive damping system, which can be adjusted to three modes: normal, sport, or track. And for rear passengers, there’s an optional entertainment package that includes screens in both seat backs and wireless headphones. Opt against the headphones and there’s always the standard 1,000-watt 15-speaker BeoSound system by Bang & Olufsen.

Such technology is a far cry from Aston Martin’s beginnings in 1913. It was post-Edwardian England, a time and place that would be familiar to the characters of Downton Abbey or Parade’s End. A pair of pals in London, Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, set out to build fast cars for gentlemen racers like themselves, mixing and matching Italian- and French-sourced bodies and engines. (The “Aston” designation came from Aston Hill, a hill-climb course in nearby Buckinghamshire where the cars were regularly raced.)

Bamford left in 1920, but others signed on, and Aston Martin set up shop in Kensington, manufacturing cars with such nicknames as Green Pea and Buzz Box—and repeatedly declaring bankruptcy. Not until 1947 did real stability come, when businessman David Brown purchased the firm. (He’s the “DB” in all those great Aston models.) Many of the vehicles were styled by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring, and by the ’60s people began to speak of Aston Martin as the British Ferrari. The company went on to become a pop-culture institution.

What many consider to be the marque’s defining moment occurred in 1964, when an Aston Martin appeared in a James Bond film for the first time—in Goldfinger, the suave spy drives a silver birch DB5 equipped with machine guns, an oil-slick dispenser, and a passenger-side ejector seat. (The DB5 has starred in a half-dozen 007 movies, including last year’s Skyfall, and, like Bond, is something of an English national hero now.) Or it could have been in 1969, when Queen Elizabeth gave Prince Charles a blue DB6 for his 21st birthday. Then there was Prince William’s wedding, in 2011, when he and his bride, Kate Middleton, drove away in the very same DB6. And it’s no surprise that the man who handles an Aston on the job also got one for home: Current 007 Daniel Craig recently acquired a shiny new red Vantage V-12 roadster as a birthday present.

A century later, the brand’s debonair designs continue to captivate motorists, and it’s still impossible not to recognize an Aston upon coming face-to-face with one. In the Rapide S, the iconic grille has grown wider, its smile bolder—it might be the face of a happy gent blowing out candles on a cake. Starting at $199,950, the Rapide S arrives in June. astonmartin.com

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